How to search for text in LibreOffice Calc

Lukas Grossar

This post describes how to search for text in LibreOffice Calc cells/columns and perform some subsequent calculations on cells in the same row. It is primarily a reminder for myself, to ensure I don't always have to search for ODS files where I last used this formula.

Basically what it does is SEARCH for a string in a cell. If it finds the string the return value of SEARCH is 1. If it fails to find the string the return value is #VALUE!. To catch the error I use the ISERROR function and since ISERROR return FALSE when we actually found the string I need to invert the boolean using NOT.

=NOT(
    ISERROR(
        SEARCH(
            "example",
            $D11
        )
    )
)

I usually use this search formula to perform some math on related rows, so if I search for multiple strings I can combine these fields with an OR. The following formula allows me to search combine three text searches for the subsequent calculation.

=IF(
    OR(
        J2:L2
    ),
    $B2 * 24,
    0
)